Primarily Found On:

Protection

The links below will take you either to the Collector section of MASSIVEATTACK.IE, or to an external website - either amazon.com or discogs.com, where you can find out more about all the the album (s)/release (s) that this particular Massive Attack song appears on.

Protection (Single Release), Collected, Singles 90/98, Everything But The Girl - Like The Deserts Miss The Rain, Now That’s What I Call Music 30, Ambient Moods, Ocean Of Sound 2: Crooning On Venus (The Eno Mix), Special Brew (Underdog’s Angel Dust Mix), The Best Of Brit Pop, The Best… Album In The World…Ever!

26th September 1994

07:51

The Eno Mix - A remix provided by the famed ambient electronic composer Brian Eno, making the regular version of Protection into an even more relaxing and soothing tune. Massive Attack would go on to collaborate with Brian Eno again on an alternative re-recorded version of Karmacoma called Fake The Aroma. Included on all singles releases.

The Eno Instrumental - Exactly like the original Eno Mix sans vocals from Tracey Thorn. Included only on the 12” promo vinyl release.

Radiation For The Nation - Another remix provided by the Mad Professor. Included on all single releases and on No Protection. As a sidenote, this particular remix of Protection was mentioned by name in the 2000 film High Fidelity. In the film, John Cusack’s character Rob puts Radiation Ruling the Nation on his list of ‘Top 5 Track Ones Side Ones’, to which Jack Black’s character Barry responds [Quote]“A song with new classic status snuck into a list of old safe ones - very pussy!”. The remix itself however does not appear anywhere on the soundtrack to the film.

Underdog’s Angel Dust Mix - Following on from his recent remix work of Sly, the Underdog (AKA DJ and producer Tim Simenon) would also contribute his talents to this remix of Protection. His next and final remix for Massive Attack would be for Risingson. Included on all singles releases.

Angel Dust Instrumental - Exactly like the original Underdog’s Angel Dust Mix sans vocals from Tracey Thorn. Included only on the 12” promo vinyl release.

J Sw!ft Mix - Veteran rap DJ and producer J Sw!ft helped produced this remix of Protection. Sometimes it is wrongly labeled as The Pharcyde Mix, with The Pharcyde being a rap outfit from the West Coast of America. This confusion is beacuse J Sw!ft is a regular producer for The Pharcyde. Included on all singles releases.

Magnetic Shield Dub - This is an additonal remix done by the Mad Professor which only appears on one source: a free cassette tape that was given out with copies of the April Edition of Select Magazine in the UK.

Flood 2k - This remix was not released until nearly six years after the original single release when it was made availible on a compilation entitled Manchester United: Beyond The Promised Land. The remix was done by Flood, the highly regarded and profilic producer of such bands as U2 and Depeche Mode. Flood himself remarked on how he went about remixing Protection - [Quote]“I thought that the basic arrangement was so strong that I kept to that, and fiddled around with the bottom end of things. I had quite a bizarre bass sequence which I thought would pretty much plough through everything. Then I tried to just get a hint of their chords, because they are quite important to the melody - giving things a bit more of an edge without giving the full game away for what is effectively a seven-inch single. I suppose you could call the result a cross between a club record and something you’d listen to at home”.

7″ Edit - This is a heavily truncated version (at 4:53) of Protection produced to be played by radio DJ’s. Included on the jukebox 7″ vinyl promo and on one of the CD promos for Protection.

Edit - Much like the 7″ Edit above this Edit was produced for the same reasons and reduces the length of Protection done to 03:55. Included only on the USA CD promo for Protection.

Written by Andrew Vowles, Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Tracey Thorn

Produced by Andrew Vowles, Robert Del Naja, Grant Marshall and Nellee Hooper

See Protection info section for further credit details by clicking here.

For the Collected version of the song, additional credits are:

Remastered by Mike Marsh at the Exchange and Tim Young at Metropolis Mastering.

Protection uses a sample from James Brown’s song “The Payback” which is taken from his 1972 album of the same name The Payback. It is not credited officially be Massive Attack.

So far, Protection has recieved two cover versions. One is by a Californian rock band known as Dart. The other is by Canadian singer-songwriter Emm Gryner.

Tracey Thorn

Afer the fallout of losing their chantessue from Blue Lines, Shara Nelson, Massive Attack were forced to be on the lookout for potential replacements for the sophomore album. Several singers were contacted including soul singer Aaron Neville, punk singer Siouxsie Sioux and Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O’Connor (who later on would appear on 100th Window). They even went so far as to advertise in the NME magazine with the ad description reading - [Quote]“Female vocalist wanted for internationally acclaimed pop band. Influences include Aretha Franklin and Tracey Chapman”. In the end it was Tracey Thorn who reponded to them, basing her reasons both on her admiration for Blue Lines and also she had desired to collaborate with a electronic/dance act for quite some time. From there Massive Attack sent her the backing track for what would become Protection (Better Things was produced later on) where Tracey Thorn added to her vocals, together with a melody she had written which instantly arrested Massive Attack’s attention and make them persue the song further until it’s ultimate concluson.

N/A

Much like its sister track Better Things, Protection has very rarely been played live due to the fact that Tracey Thorn has practically never toured with Massive Attack. There were apparently a handful of dates played during the 1995 tour in England where Tracey Thorn was present and played both Better Things and Protection but this has never happened since. The only confirmed live appearance of Better Things was on Top Of The Pops on the BBC which was broadcast sometime in January 1995.

While it is true that Protection has been very rarely played live, for every date on the 1995/1996 tour, and instrumental version of Protection was played at the beginning of every show. This was only ever about two minutes in length and segued into a live performance of Safe From Harm, acting mostly as a prelude to the show.

Tracey Thorn on how Protection was written - “They sent me five almost completed backing backing tracks, one of which would later become Protection, which were mostly stuff generated from loops and samples. It was different from sitting down with an accoutic guitar, but after a while, it was quite a liberating experience musically” [The Face Magazine - September 1994]

Daddy G on why Tracey Torn was so suited to singing Protection - “ When Tracey Thorn writes about love, it’s always so personal and it’s about love in a conventional sense. We felt that would fit with the track [Protection] we were doing because a lot of the stuff is sparse and there’s quite a lot of room to manoeuvre” [Wasted Magazine - December 1994]